Dillon’s CP Blog

First Acupuncture and Stem Cell Schedule

July 31st, 2009

Dillon had his first acupuncture today. The doctor said it might hurt Dillon a little because the areas she was putting the needles in have more nerves. In adults they leave the needles in longer, in kids they just put them in and take them out right away.

Before she started, Dillon started into one of his clusters of seizures. She pushed on a spot on the upper lip right where the middle of the nose meets the lip. She pushed on it two or three times and the seizures stopped. I don’t know if it would have stopped anyways or not but she showed me how to try it in the future. It was about three hours before he had another seizure. We are trying to do that again ourselves. I think it might be working, his seizures seem to be shorter and not have as many in a row. But we will keep trying it over the next several days and see if it helps or not.

I was holding Dillon for his first treatment. She cleaned the area with iodine and then quick as could be pushed the needle in and out of his throat. Mom K got some priceless photos and movies of MY face as they were doing this. I do not like needles at all so it was hard for me to watch her push these needles into his body. (Sorry I can’t get photos to upload so I am still working on it but photos may not work while I am here. If I can’t get them on here I will get them on the MOMENT we get home!) She did two in the throat, one or two in each of the following areas inside of the elbows, wrists, knees and ankles. These ones are to help with the increased muscle tone.

They will do this everyday except Sundays and any days that he is getting stem cells. She may not do the same points everyday, it will depend. I feel really bad for him because I know I wouldn’t let them do this to me! But I know we are doing it to try to help Dillon. If it can help him it will be less painful in the long run.

Dillon is scheduled for 3 injections via IV and 3 injections via spinal puncture. They do NOT want to do the injection directly into the brain for a few reasons. One being they looked at his MRI and saw that the “black area” (I think they called it a ventricle) is much bigger than it should be and is too big of an area for the direct injection. The stem cells will be spread out to the whole brain better by putting it into the spinal fluid than if they inject it directly. I think that would work more if the brain damage was a single area of the brain rather than the whole brain. They also do not want to put him completely out in order to do this. They feel he is too risky to do this. However, normally with the spinals it is done in the patent’s room. They come in and make it a sterile environment and do it with a local anestesia, but for Dillon they are going to take him to the OR and use mild sedation. They do not want him to have a seizure or move around while they are doing the spinal as that is very dangerous. So they are taking extra care to make sure he is safe.

Thank you for praying, please continue to pray for him and us and the doctors here! Pray God would guide their hands so that everything will go smoothly. We are scheduled for the first IV injection on Monday. We should be starting Physical therapy today sometime. Then every day he will have physical therapy and occupational therapy. They are also going to do electrowave therapy with him at some point. Someone said something about Chinese massage therapy too, so I am not sure if they are going to do that or not.

Will update later when there is new information! Thank you!

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